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Sourdough bread - Baking

Baking

Getting ready
Your wood fired oven is ready when it is over 270°C, time to remove the coals, clean the oven floor and let it rest for half an hour before baking.
When using your kitchen oven you should first introduce your special baking stone (Domestic Ovens) warm up your oven for 1 or 1 and half hour at maximum temperature.

Put a small cast iron dish in it. On your working surface you have a cup of water and your slashing tool in it (razor blade or cutter) a container with fine flour to dust the top of each loafs and another container with semolina or coarse bran or a mixture of both to help the dough slide on the peel.
Put some boiling water in the cast iron dish to built up the humidity inside the oven. Write down the baking starting time.


Baking
Bread proof in Baneton (basket) or if you bake plenty breads you proof them in a large tray using a long cloth to separate them.
In the Baneton the dough is up side down so you spread some semolina on the dough put the peel on top of the basket and turn both 180 degrees.
Using a proofing tray the dough is the right way up so you put semolina on the peel prior to move the dough on it.
The shaped dough is now resting on the peel dust the top with the fine white flour and start slashing, open the oven door, position the peel where you want the bread to go in with a quick movement remove the peel.
Repeat the operation for all the breads .

After 20 minutes I turn the breads around on the oven floor and wait for another 20 to 25 minutes (depending on oven heat and bread size) then I make sure they are properly cooked by taking the inside temperature (should be around 97 to 99°C in the bread center). Once breads are cooked I remove them from the oven and place them on a wooden ruck.